


until i had you on the open road and now we're singing

by PotofCoffee



Category: Holby City
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mechanics, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Road Trips, Slow Burn, the tiniest amount of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-06 13:53:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8754577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PotofCoffee/pseuds/PotofCoffee
Summary: Serena let out a short laugh, “Funny you don’t look like a mechanic” she said, “well, apart from the fag.” “Yes, well.” The woman shrugged and grinned slightly. “Thankfully the cars usually still let you fix them even if you don’t look the part.” An AU where Bernie is a mechanic and Serena has very much been to Stepney (if you catch my drift)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> wow this was supposed to be a oneshot but grew completely out of proportions so uh look inside for shameless wish fulfillment re: sexy mechanic Bernie. also i work as an automotive service advisor so finally finding an outlet for all of my useless mechanical knowledge has been fun.  
> a huge shoutout as usual to Crystal and Nova for keeping me sane and motivated.  
> come find me on tumblr (username: magnass) if you want continued feelings and discussions.

Serena was having an awful day. Absolutely wretched. She had barely steeled herself to the prospect of surviving Elinor’s play when her car decided to break down.

“I’m sorry ma’am I can’t fit you in until tomorrow” she could tell the young person on the phone was trying to be polite but their tone was grating on her nerves.

“Which part of I need my car today are you struggling to understand?” She snapped. The line went dead, had they just hung up on her? “Hello? Hell—”

“Engine been growling or whining?” A voice interrupted her frustrations and she spun around to see a tall blonde woman smoking by the doorway to the hospital. “Any intermittent smell of hot or burning rubber?”

“Define intermittent.” Serena shot back as the woman strode towards her.

“Alternator might be cactus.” She offered, pulling the fag from her mouth.

“Sounds bad.”

“It is if you want to drive anywhere” the woman replied simply.

Serena let out a short laugh,

“Funny you don’t look like a mechanic” she said, “well, apart from the fag.”

“Yes, well.” The woman shrugged and grinned slightly. “Thankfully the cars usually still let you fix them even if you don't look the part.” Serena laughed harder at that; fair enough: she should know better by now than to judge a book by its cover. “Bernie Wolfe” She extended her hand to Serena, who took it and shook it firmly. “I own New Era Garage down on Quinn St.”

“Serena Campbell, I’m a surgeon here on AAU.”

“Nice to meet you, Serena.” She released her hand, gestured to the car once more. “Any clicking noise when you tried to start it? Headlights flicker at all before the car stopped running?”

“No, and yes.”

“Hmmm. Definitely sounds like an alternator. I can ring up a friend of mine, get it towed to my shop, but you won’t be driving it anywhere today.”

“Damn!” Just what she needed to hear.

“Somewhere you need to be?”

“Yes. Cambridge.” Serena looked down at her mobile for the time. “And I’m already late.”

“Well, why don’t you let me give you a lift?” Bernie shrugged, said it as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

“To Cambridge?” She had to be mad. Or a murderer.

“I’m not a serial killer, promise” Bernie said just then. As if she was reading Serena’s mind. “But I closed my shop for the day and this could be my good deed for the week.” Her smile was disarming. Serena had always thought herself a good judge of people and her gut was telling her to trust this Bernie. Not to mention, she firmly believed that one should never look a gift horse in the mouth. She sighed.

“Look, I don’t know you from Adam but I really need to get to Cambridge to see my daughter perform in what is sure to be an absolutely awful am-dram production of Les Mis and I can’t afford to not take you up on your offer. So, sure. Okay. Let’s go to Cambridge.”

“Great. I’m parked over here” Bernie led the way and Serena followed behind her, wondering to herself what the hell she was getting into. “If it helps” Bernie said as an aside as they walked “I’ve got a box of stuff in the boot of my car I was supposed to send back to my ex weeks ago and, well, I never got around to it.”

“And your ex just happens to live in Cambridge?”

“Grantchester. Close enough. So if you don’t mind a quick detour” that casual shrug again. Serena nodded because why not? May as well make it worth her while. They came to stand in front of an ancient yellow fiat that looked like a good shake might just make it vibrate apart. “This is me” Bernie announced. Serena winced; of course it was.

“Now I’m really beginning to rethink the lift.” She looked the tiny vehicle over. “Are you sure you’re a mechanic? What's holding this thing together bits of twine and hope?"

"It's the first car I ever owned" Bernie protested.

"I find that easy to believe” Serena rejoined “I think I'd believe you if you said this was the first car anyone ever owned"

“Hey!” Bernie objected, her hand running over the top of the door. “Be nice, she can hear you!” Serena couldn’t help but smile at the indignation in Bernie’s tone. She opened the door, got in. As Bernie put the car into gear she said “by the way, I’m texting three different people your name and description. Just in case you are a serial killer.”

“Okay” Bernie replied easily. “You should know, then, that my first name is actually Berenice.”

* * *

For the first hour or so they drove in silence. Nothing but the low hum of the radio and the road noise typical of riding in a veritable biscuit tin on wheels. Serena was surprised to see that the vehicle could actually hit 70mph, surpass it in fact, as Bernie seemed to view the speed limit as mere suggestion rather than law. Once she had accepted that it did not seem like Bernie was going to pull off into the bushes and kill her, she figured she might as well try to get to know her a bit.

“So does she have a name?” She asked.

“I’m sorry?” Bernie was obviously not following Serena’s train of thought.

“The car. You called her she. I was wondering if that was just general or if she has a name.”

“Oh, um, yes. It’s Boudicea.” At Serena’s look she explained weakly “my dad named her.”

“And would that happen to be the same man who named you Berenice?”

“Yes it would.”

“So was he the primary owner?” Serena was genuinely interested. She had never met someone who had named their car before but, then again, she couldn’t think of a time she’d ever sat around and chatted with a mechanic before either. “Just how long has Boudicea been around?”

“She was his car, originally. He bought her secondhand when I was about 12. We used to spend hours and hours working on her together. Pulling her apart, putting her back together.” Bernie’s hand caressed the dash gently as she spoke. “He served in the army so we didn’t get to see him all too often. But when he was home it was our time, you know?”

“Mmm, that’s nice. You didn’t want to follow his path, join the armed forces?” Serena couldn’t quite quantify why she was so interested. But there was something about Bernie that just made her want to get to know her better.

“No. My brothers are all servicemen, but” she paused and swallowed, “when I was 16 my dad was killed on tour.”

“I’m so sorry.” She was, truly, losing a parent at any age was tough but so young was tragic.

“It’s okay” Bernie shrugged. “It was a long time ago. But it made me angry, really angry, at the army for a good long while. So when I turned seventeen I ran away to London.”

“With Boudicea?”

“With Boudicea, yes.” She gave Serena a fleeting smile. “I found a shop there and began to do odd jobs: washing cars, sweeping the floors, eventually worked hard enough to show them that I wasn’t going to stop until they apprenticed me.”

“Can’t have been easy, trying to be taken seriously as a woman who wanted to be a mechanic back then.”

“It wasn’t. Can’t have been easy to be a woman who wanted to be a doctor back then either.”

“Touché” Serena couldn’t help but grin at the exchange.

“So your daughter is an actress then?” Bernie changed tracks suddenly.

“Yes. Trying to be at least.” Serena didn’t mean to sound snippy, managed to anyway. “Sorry. It’s just. Not exactly what you dream of for them when they’re young, you know? And I, well, I may have intimated the last time we saw each other that she might want to think about a more serious career.”

“Ah. Hence not being able to miss this.” Bernie’s tone was not the grating sympathy Serena expected but simple understanding instead.

“Exactly.”

“And you couldn’t go another day?”

“This is the last day of the performance.”

“Of course.”

“Yes.” Serena sighed. “She’s already unhappy that I left it til the last day to come see her. She would be livid if I missed it.”

“Ah. And what role is she playing?”

“Éponine?”

“The Jondrette girl” Bernie replied, nodding.

“Oh.” She hadn’t been expecting that. “Do you know the play?”

“I have a passing familiarity with it. You?”

“Depressing and French is about the extent of my knowledge I’m afraid.” Serena laughed. Then, before she could think about it too much made an impulsive offer, “you’re welcome to come watch it with me, if you’d like. Elinor reserved two seats for me, I think she was hoping I would bring a date but, well...”

“A strange mechanic will do the trick?” Bernie suggested with a quick grin.

“Something like that.” Serena shrugged and grinned back. Really it couldn’t make the day any stranger.

* * *

Thanks to Bernie’s penchant for driving like she was at the wheel of a race car they did end up making it on time for the performance. They got the tickets Elinor had reserved for her at the box office and took their seats about a minute before the curtain went up. Serena wouldn’t say it was the most excruciating three hours of her life—she had been through labour after all—but it came pretty damn close. She enjoyed Bernie’s presence at her side, though. She found herself often looking to her for her reaction throughout the piece. Bernie did not disappoint, shooting Serena a quick grin or an eye roll at the most painful moments.

Afterwards they waited around for Elinor who bounced out, high on the exhilaration of performing, and gave Serena a quick hug. Serena sent up a silent prayer of thanks that Elinor seemed to have decided to forget all about the row they had had on their last visit. Instead seemed quite happy to chat with her and Serena would admit to indulging freely her shameless fishing for compliments. She was grateful for Bernie’s presence once more (ignoring Elinor’s raised eyebrows at the somewhat awkward introduction of ‘her mechanic’) as Bernie apparently had more than a mere passing knowledge of the play and the source material. She engaged easily with Elinor about the directorial choices, making comparisons with other more well known productions and discussing deviations from the novel.

They left on good terms as Elinor headed off to her cast party and Serena let out a little sigh of relief that all was well between them once more. She did not dwell on the fact that on her parting hug Elinor had whispered in her ear ‘I really like her Mum’ because Bernie was a stranger and her daughter being apparently completely at ease with the idea of Serena dating a woman was something she didn’t need to dwell on right then.

On their return trip to Holby, they stopped off in Grantchester so Bernie could complete her errand. They pulled up to a fairly average small country home and Serena waited patiently as Bernie grabbed the box out of the boot and lugged it to the front door. She had the window rolled down for airflow, hadn’t intended on eavesdropping on the conversation in the slightest. Still she watched with interest as Bernie knocked. A slim dark haired woman answered the door and Serena winced; having to talk to the new girlfriend? That was never fun. The woman stepped onto the porch, let the door close behind her, and stood with her arms crossed.

“Hi” Bernie said weakly.

“What the hell are you doing here Bernie?” The woman demanded.

“Ummm. I’m returning your things.”

“Couldn’t have just stuck them in the post?” The woman’s tone was acerbic and that was when the penny dropped for Serena. _Oh_. This wasn’t the ex’s new girlfriend. This was Bernie’s ex. Bernie was a lesbian? Well. Apparently. She turned her attention back to the conversation before her. The woman’s voice was getting louder and louder and Bernie was quickly devolving into nothing more than monosyllables and mumbling filler words.

It was painful to behold. A more painful tableau than the entire stretch of Les Mis had been, which she wouldn’t have thought possible. Bernie looked more and more uncomfortable as it dragged on, clutching the box to her chest like a shield, avoiding eye contact as the woman grew more and more fervent. She was interrogating Bernie about why it had ended, seemed split between blaming Bernie for all the wrongs of their relationship and begging her for another go. It wasn’t long before Serena had had enough. Without even really thinking about it, she was getting out of the car and walking over to the two women.

“Darling, are you about ready to go?” She asked as she neared them, stepping up beside Bernie and sliding one hand along the small of Bernie’s back to rest on her hip.

“Darling?” The woman choked a bit on the word, Bernie’s eyes flew to Serena’s and Serena gave her what she hoped was a reassuring look.

“Oh I’m so sorry!” She exclaimed as she turned to the other woman. “Serena. Terribly rude of me.” She held out her hand.

“Penelope” she replied, taking Serena’s hand in a firm shake.

“Yes. I’ve heard.” Serena let her tone be infused with just the right edge of malice. “I’m so sorry to end the catching up but we really must be going, musn’t we Darling?” Bernie nodded, bemused but thankfully playing along. Handed the box over to Penelope. Serena smiled sweetly, “we have a long drive ahead of us and I’m afraid I get testy if Berenice doesn’t get me into bed at a reasonable hour.” She didn’t need to look for the reaction, knew the comment had landed, instead used her hand on Bernie’s hip to turn her towards the vehicle. She kept her hand on her hip the whole walk, was glad that Bernie let her hand fall to Serena’s shoulder in a complimentary embrace. She heard the door slam shut behind them, shot a conspiratorial wink to Bernie at the sound.

* * *

Bernie did her best not to drum her fingers on the steering wheel as she drove away from Penelope’s house. She didn’t know what to say.

“Sorry for interfering” Serena broke through the awkward silence. “It was just getting a little painful to hear.”

“No. Um. No apology needed. Thank you, actually, for um” she gestured vaguely. Cursed her inability to verbalise.

“You’re welcome. Bad breakup?”

“Not. Uh. Not the best.” Bernie was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Was waiting for Serena to say something about her sexuality. People always did. Based on Serena’s actions she didn’t think it would be negative, but even gay friendly straight people always seemed to change once they knew. Seemed to need to prove their openness or to ask condescending or invasive questions they’d never dream of bringing up before they found out you were a homoseuxal.

“Long distance?” Serena asked instead.

“No. She, um, moved back here after we split last month. It was her folks’ place, she was going to sell it but then we…”

“Ah.”

“Apparently I’m, um, too reticent. She didn’t like that I couldn’t talk about my feelings.” Bernie let the words spill out of her mouth before she could stop them. What was it about this woman that made her want to tell her everything?

“There are worse things, certainly? I’d much rather be with someone faithful and loving who can’t quite manage the words than someone who can talk up a storm but whose actions leave a lot to be desired.”

Bernie didn’t know what to say to that, either. She settled for a shrug.

They didn’t talk about anything else too serious for the rest of the drive. Talked about mindless things like the weather and traffic instead. Laughed about how awful the play had been. Bernie’s favourite moments were when Serena would stop talking mid-sentence and reach over to turn up the stereo and sing along lustily to Mamma Mia or Take Me On or Africa, her hair ruffled by the breeze from the sunroof and her smile bright. She laughed at Bernie’s inability to name the artists of the tunes, encouraged her to join in on the singing, then laughed even harder at Bernie’s awful tuneless attempts, begged her to stop with tears of mirth in her eyes.

When Bernie dropped her off at her home it was with a twinge of sadness. It was an odd thing, to spend a day like they had with someone you didn’t know. And yet now they knew some very personal things about each other but were still, for all intents and purposes, complete strangers. Serena gave her the number for the hospital so she could ring as soon as the car was done and the next day Bernie did just that.

* * *

A week later, Bernie woke up to the sound of someone hammering insistently on the door of her garage. A glance at her phone told her it was 5:45. She padded barefoot to the window and looked out, not expecting in the slightest what she found. One Serena Campbell, scowling and banging the large overhead door with her fist. Funny, the woman hadn't seemed too batty in their previous encounters, but this just went to show that Bernie really needed to hold by her rule of not letting people know she lived above her shop. She moved to the door, giving a reassuring pat to her mastiff Major's head—raised inquisitively at the disruption—as she walked past him, and slipped on a pair of tennis shoes. She went out the side door of the garage and came to face Serena.

She looked furious. Really, bloody furious. She had her arms crossed in front of her chest, one foot tapping impatiently against the ground.

"Serena, hi" Bernie said as she came to stand before her. The breeze was chilly and she was caught between wishing she'd grabbed a jumper and desperately hoping that Serena wouldn't notice the way her nipples were hardening in the cold. Served her right for wearing nothing more than a ratty old t-shirt and boxers to bed. "How've you been?" She tried. Figured it would be good to attempt some civility in the face of obvious wrath.

Serena, apparently, did not agree.

"I went to my regular shop for maintenance the other day,” she launched right in, “was chatting with the man about the car and I mentioned the alternator repair. Funny thing, he said 'must've been expensive' and I said 'well no actually wasn't that bad' and when I told him how much you'd charged me _he_ said that I got a steal of a deal and the only way he could've done it for that price would be if he sold the part at cost and didn’t charge a cent for labour.”

"Oh." _Crap_.

"I'll take that to mean he's right?"

"Well" Bernie was scrambling a bit. She didn't even know why she'd given Serena such a hell of a deal: because she was beautiful? Because they’d had a load of fun the day before? Because she liked the way she looked when she smiled? Her usual 'pretty girl' discount was only 15% off, she did have a business to run after all, couldn’t really say why she’d decided to give the work away this time with this (admittedly very pretty) woman. "It's not often I get my hands on such a nice Swedish engine" was the best she could offer, knew it sounded pathetic the moment it left her mouth.

"Right. Of course." Serena scoffed, tossing her head back. "What so I'm some middle aged charity case now? Not enough to drive me to bloody Cambridge you won't even charge me the proper cost for my repair. Just some sad old woman you have to take pity on—"

"I think we're the same age" Bernie tried to interject but Serena was too lost in her diatribe to pay attention.

"Some tragic single mid-life pauper who’s pathetic enough to warrant special treatment. I may love a bargain, but I'll have you know that I believe in paying a fair wage for work. And I _don't_ need a sympathy discount thank you very much!" At that she shoved an envelope towards Bernie. Snapped "take it" when Bernie didn't reach out for it immediately. Bernie followed her command, took the envelope and opened it to find a stack of bills inside.

"Ummm, what's this?"

"That is the difference between what I paid you and what the other garage said they would have charged."

"What? No. This is" she flipped through the notes "this is more than I would have charged you in the first place".

"Tough luck" Serena said with a shrug. "You can use it to buy some more twine for that rust heap you call a car." With that she turned and stalked off, got in her car, drove away. In her wake she left Bernie, who stood in her driveway bewildered and shivering for a few minutes until she finally shook her head and went back inside.

Figured that was the last she would see of Serena Campbell.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is there an excuse for any of this? nope. im just hella gay.
> 
> also my apologies if i fucked smth up mechanically, i do know what im talking about but ive never put my hands on a saab in my life so i cheated a bit on some of the details.

6 months passed. Bernie occasionally thought of the stranger with whom she'd gone to Cambridge. A fond memory she dwelled on infrequently, a 'what could have happened' consideration that filled her mind as an idle fantasy. That night, near the end of August, she was spending a quiet evening in her garage. The place was closed, she was supposedly done for the night. But she was in the midst of dropping the transmission on a Renault Clio to fix a leaking rear main seal and she'd rather finish up with it that night than leave it to the morning.

There was something calming, something she absolutely loved about being in the shop after it closed. Of course, some nights she couldn't wait to trudge upstairs, wash the grease and grime off her hands and be done with the day. But a lot of the time, the end of the day was the best time to get the work done. Her shop was well lit and as it was August there was still daylight streaming in through the windows. With everything closed up there were no interruptions, no customers coming by. Just her and a car and her tools and Major, released from his daily prison of the apartment, happily nosing around the place sniffing out all of his favourite corners or just stretched out and relaxing as she worked.

The sharp ring of her telephone broke through the calm and Bernie sighed as she realised she had forgotten to switch the phone to going straight to the machine. She hated letting it ring through, had been taught it was unprofessional to not answer the phone as quickly possible, so she wiped her hands on a rag, grabbed the handset, and answered.

"Hi, New Era Auto Repair."

"Hello?" The voice on the other end sounded panicked and slightly familiar. "Hi, Bernie?"

"Speaking."

"This is Serena. Campbell. With the—"

"The green Saab 9-3. Of course. Everything alright?"

"Well no, actually. Sorry to call so late but I just got off shift and my regular garage is closed and my car's giving me trouble and I couldn't think of anyone else…" Her voice trailed off, Bernie could hear the slight embarrassment in her tone, knew she was undoubtedly remembering their last encounter.

"Not a problem. Made the right call. What's happening with the car?"

"Well I tried to start it and it made the" she made a kind of brruh noise repeatedly "sound, but took a long time to go vroom."

"Right." Bernie was doing her best not to laugh. "So long crank, hard start. But it's running now?"

"Yes. It sounds awful though, and there’s a kind of rotten egg smell coming from the engine too."

"Do you think you can get it here? Drive it to the shop, I mean. It'll be quicker and cheaper than a tow."

"I can try. It's not too far from the hospital."

"Okay then. See you soon." She hung up after Serena said goodbye, went to tidy up a little and pull open the overhead door so Serena could drive right in when she arrived. After about 15 minutes she pulled up, her car rumbling and spurting and crawling along at a pace Bernie was unsure if she should credit to the problems with the car itself or the trepidation of the driver. She waved Serena up the driveway and into the shop, guiding her into the unoccupied bay.

"Hi." Serena greeted her as she got out of the car.

"Hullo. Good to see you again."

"Is it? Right. Good." Serena's attention was drawn away from Bernie by Major who had come up trotting up to explore the new person.

"Sorry" Bernie grabbed at Major's collar and held him back. "He's harmless, just inquisitive."

"Can I say hi?"

"Of course, if you’d like. Fair warning: he is apt to drool all over you."

"Oh I don't mind. I love dogs." Serena said it with warmth and Bernie dropped her hold on Major's collar. She watched, aghast, as Serena sank to her knees on the shop floor with no regard for her lovely clothes and beckoned Major towards her. Serena scratched his head and laughed as he snuffled around her face. She babbled at him calling him a good dog and saying his name repeatedly.

“He likes you,” Bernie couldn’t help but comment on it. Major was an even tempered dog and while he rarely showed any animosity he also didn’t take to people too often.

“He’s gorgeous.” Serena looked up at her, “how old is he?”

“He’s 8. I’ve had him since he was only a few months old. “He’s a great dog, a good companion. Even if he does drool over everything I own.”

“I believe that!” Serena got to her feet, brushing at her trousers, already covered in dog hair. “I think he managed to get a little in my hair.” Bernie was about to apologize but Serena spoke up before she could. “No, no! You warned me and I petted him anyway. Think nothing of it. Anyway, I should probably stop distracting you and let you take a look at the car.

“Of course,” Bernie nodded. “If you’d like you can sit on that stool right there while I take a look.”

Serena went where she was bid and Bernie couldn’t help but grin as Major followed, sitting down beside her and putting his head on Serena’s lap as soon as she sat down, looking up at her expectantly.

Bernie grabbed her scanner off her work bench and went to plug it into the vehicle. The rotten egg smell Serena had described definitely made her think the engine was running too rich, she just needed to figure out why.

* * *

Serena had never been one for the sexy mechanic trope. For goodness sake they were just trying to do their job! And a grimy, challenging job at that. She had certainly never gone weak in the knees at the sight of some well built man holding a wrench. That being said, there was something decidedly… Stirring about the sight of Bernie in her tight white vest and baggy work trousers, a streak of grease highlighting her cheek. Not to mention the view of her very nice arse on display as she bent over the engine compartment of Serena's car. She stretched a little further, her vest rode up to show off a sliver of skin and Serena licked her lips reflexively. Christ. She needed to get a hold of herself.

"Serena?" She looked up and met Bernie's gaze.

"Hmm?"

"I think I've found your problem." She waved Serena over, Major plodded along behind her until Bernie banished him back to the sidelines of the shop.

"Is he not allowed to see too?" Serena asked.

"Not since the time he decided to use some of my tools as incredibly expensive chew toys."

Serena laughed at that: fair enough. She stood where Bernie indicated and looked down into her engine compartment.

"It seems" Bernie began. "That you have a rodent problem."

"Rodents?"

"Yup. See those droppings?" She pointed out the trail of small black stools. "A rat probably. They love to crawl up in engines looking for a nice place to nest and they cause right havoc when they do." She held up a small round plastic cap with little teeth marks on it, some of which had chewed it all the way through. "See this? Little bugger chewed his way through this and let moisture get in, here I'll show you where." She beckoned Serena closer and Serena dutifully leaned over the vehicle and peered into the dark hole where Bernie was pointing. "Wait let me grab a light." And then Bernie was leaning over her from behind shining a torch down the tube. "See that?"

"Right. Yes." She didn’t see at all. She was in fact a little bit more preoccupied with the sensation of Bernie's lithe body pressed up against her, the scent of grease and a hint of, Old Spice maybe, overwhelming her, her mind running rampant at the feeling of Bernie's strong arms on either side of her body.

She mentally told herself to get a grip. What about this woman had suddenly turned her into a hormonal teenager? Maybe it had been too long since she had had sex. What had it been? Three, four months? Definitely too long. Maybe she should call Robbie up. Then again, Robbie had never made her feel like her nerve endings were on fire just by breathing on her.

"So the water got into there and affected the cylinder head temperature sensor" Bernie moved away and grabbed a small metal thing from her nearby bench. "No wonder you had trouble starting her up, your poor car thought it was -40!" She laughed a little at that, the same absurd laugh Serena had witnessed on their weird little road trip that spring. Serena didn't get the joke at all, was trying to decide if she should pity laugh when Bernie stopped and looked at her. "You don't get it, do you?"

"Not in the slightest" Serena admitted. "I can't say I've ever been shown anything in my engine before. Can't even change a tyre I'm afraid."

"Well on a cold start your vehicle is just dumping in fuel, hence the rotten egg smell."

"And more fuel is a bad thing?"

"Do you not know anything about how your car runs?" Bernie asked then.

"Put my foot on the gas it goes, foot on the brake it stops?"

"How is that possible? You drive it every day!"

"Yes well" Serena snapped back "you walk around in that body all day but I'm sure you don't know how to treat myocardial infarction or how to fix a pseudoaneurysm of the splenic artery!" She said it with a bit more vexation than was strictly necessary, possibly, and Bernie immediately put her hands up in a gesture of surrender.

"Sorry. Yes you're right that was careless of me. Sometimes I just forget that not everyone knows this stuff. You can sit down again, if you'd like." Serena did so, and was unprepared for the rush of words that came from the, in her experience at least, usually fairly taciturn Bernie. "It's an internal combustion engine, right? So your vehicle runs on a mixture of fuel and air that combusts to drive it. In a diesel you can reach combustion merely by compressing the air thus raising its heat to a level that causes the atomised diesel fuel injected into the combustion chamber to combust. On a petrol vehicle like yours, the gaseous mixture of air and fuel is ignited by a spark plug. Technically what you're aiming for is a stoichiometric ratio, the ideal, which is 14.7 parts air to 1 part fuel. But most vehicles never—" she broke off mid-sentence and looked at Serena, shamefaced. "I'm sorry. You probably don't care, do you?"

"No, please, it's very educational" she ignored the warm buzz she felt at Bernie's obvious excitement -the gleam in her eye and the animated cadence of her words- told herself she was merely enjoying the chance to learn. "Do continue."

"Okay. Well, I mean, you can stop me any time if you get bored." She moved around while she spoke, grabbing tools and parts and then moving back to the engine, some of her words almost lost as she bent down to do her work. "So, like I was saying, most vehicles never hit that stoichiometric ratio but they make a good approximation. Now in the case of your car thinking it was cold, well, on a cold start it's harder to create the gaseous vapour needed for combustion due to the temperature and the easiest way to get more vapour is simply to add more petrol. The vehicle adjusts and adds more fuel in that case. But, of course, it wasn't minus 40 for you, it was a balmy 22 so then you had a mixture that was too rich in fuel, that coated your spark plugs in unburned petrol, allowing the ignition voltage to short circuit to ground instead of jumping across the electrode gap normally. Hence the problems starting. No spark no ignition, no ignition and the vehicle won’t run." She grinned up at Serena. "Simple, really."

"Simple. Of course."

"And lucky for you, looks like just the connectors on here were damaged. We shouldn't even need to replace the temperature sensor itself. I'll seal up the cap with silicone and" she grabbed a small white oval and tossed it towards Serena who managed to catch it without disturbing the dog who had once again come to lay his head in her lap "this will keep that little friend of yours from coming back."

"What is it?" It was just a small plastic thing with a sort of speaker looking thing and a little red light.

"Ultrasonic noise maker. Keeps rodents away, they hate the sound. Stick it on your dashboard and you won't have this problem again."

"Huh. Thanks." Serena wasn't entirely sure Bernie had heard her, she was moving around the vehicle once more, engrossed in her repairs. Serena busied herself with avidly scratching Major's head and watching Bernie work. It was nice. Calming. Bernie obviously knew exactly what she was doing and it ended up looking almost like an elaborately choreographed dance. Like watching a skilled surgeon operate. And of course the view wasn’t half bad either.

"Serena?" Bernie was half hanging out of the front seat of the car when she called for Serena’s attention.

"Yes?"

"When was the last time you changed your oil?"

"Ummm..." Serena shrugged.

"You do know you have to change your oil, right?"

"Of course! I'm not a blithering idiot!" She pursed her lips, tried to remember when it had been. A while, probably. "I don't know, there's a sticker in the window and I look at it sometimes."

"Right. Well the sticker in your window says you're about 800 miles past when you should've gotten it done. And it is quite important, and I already have the vehicle here..." Bernie trailed off.

"Are you asking me if you can change my oil?" Serena asked, getting right to the point.

Bernie bit her lip and nodded. Serena laughed.

"Yes okay, go ahead and change it! Might as well get it all done at once."

"You don't mind the wait?"

"Not at all." Serena gestured down at the dog resting up against her "I am making friends with the lovely Mr. Major while I watch. And learning about cars to boot!" She grinned as the joke landed, Bernie's laugh (getting cuter by the minute) louder than such a weak pun warranted.

Bernie leaned down and moved the arms of her hoist into place and then hit a nearby button to raise Serena's car into the air. She grabbed a black plastic cart with a tray lifted into the air and snagged a wrench off her bench. With the cart in the place she lifted the wrench to undo something on the bottom of the vehicle.

Serena watched as Bernie tugged on the wrench, the strain evident. The evening sunlight was streaming into the shop and seemed to highlight Bernie in its glow. Serena put a concerted effort into not outright drooling at the sight. Bernie was pulling hard on the tool, her arm muscles bulging as she exerted as much force as possible to get it to move. The moment seemed to stretch on forever, like slow motion, Bernie’s impressive musculature on display for Serena’s appreciative gaze.

"Christ!" Bernie exclaimed as she finally got it. "Where the hell did you go for your last oil change?"

"Uh Dunn’s? On Lee Street.”

"Well they over-torqued your drain bolt. Probably some kid with an impact wrench and a lack of good sense." Serena couldn't quite make out the rest of Bernie's words, she had started muttering and was facing away but she did catch a snippet that sounded like 'bloody shoddy workmanship' and another that ran along the lines of 'no standards anymore'.

She watched with rapt attention as Bernie worked. Her mind cataloguing each shift of muscles, every stretch and movement.

"I'm going to do an inspection as well" Bernie announced. "Don't trust your last shop in the slightest from the mess they made with your oil change. And I'll rotate your tyres. Which you should be doing every oil change or two, by the way. Keeps your tread depths even which is better for the car in the long run."

Serena smiled and nodded, Bernie had already started going ahead with the work as she spoke. She pulled off the tyres, pointed out the brake components out to Serena and explained to her how they worked. It was warm in the shop and Bernie was sweating as she worked, a fact Serena had noticed with no small amount of pleasure. She figured that if her brain was going to run rampant with lascivious thoughts no matter how much she tried to fight it she might as well just enjoy the show. It was so rare for her to be attracted to a woman anyway. And really what harm did it do? Just an idle flight of fancy while she waited for the work to be completed.

Then Bernie, having put all of the wheels back onto the vehicle, paused and pulled up the hem of her vest to wipe away the layer of sweat on her brow. In doing so she unintentionally revealed her torso to Serena's prurient gaze and Serena did her very best not to fall off the stool at the unexpected sight of well defined abs. Bernie looked up, caught Serena staring, blushed.

"Sorry, not used to an audience. I'll try to stay decent."

Serena's throat was completely dry, it took her three tries to actually speak.

"Y- you're fine" she finally eked out. Blushed a little when she realised how it could be interpreted.

"Cheers" Bernie replied with a cheeky grin as she got back to work.

Serena found herself deeply enjoying the evening. And not just for the show, _lubricious_ though it may be. She took a moment to laugh silently at her own pun.

But really, she was enjoying spending time with Bernie again. Very much liked hearing her talk about the car, loved how she explained everything without coming across as condescending in the slightest. Bernie had a gift for treading the line between using advanced vocabulary with the assumption that Serena would follow and pausing to explain certain terms. Serena managed to absorb most of what she said, learning about the right colour for brake fluid (the shade of Chardonnay was ideal), how it was hydroscopic, how water would get drawn into the system and lower the boiling point of the liquid lowering its efficacy and causing wear to braking components, and about the role of power steering fluid in her vehicle. Admittedly most of what Bernie said regarding the transmission went completely over her head but she tried her best to follow along.

When her car was done, parked out on the driveway and fully fixed, rodent deterrent installed and bill settled at (almost) full price, Bernie turned to Serena.

"I know it's late, you probably want to be off. But I've got supper waiting upstairs and if you wanted to join me there's plenty."

"She fixes cars _and_ she cooks? How has some lovely girl not made an honest woman of you yet?" Her tone was light and teasing and she loved how Bernie blushed and looked away in response. She took a more serious tone, "I would love to, thank you. My nephew is out tonight and I'm afraid it would just be me and some take away otherwise."

"Great! It's just curry though, don't get too excited" Bernie warned but she gave Serena a shy smile when Serena announced that curry sounded perfect.

Serena waited while Bernie did a cursory tidy of her workplace and then followed her up the stairs. Her apartment was lovely, light, beautifully lit up by large windows. It was all open floor plan, exposed brick, pale hardwood floors. Bernie left her in the sitting area, excusing herself to tidy up. Serena entertained herself by inspecting the bookcase, enthralled by the incredible variety of what she found there. Bernie returned, hair released from its band and falling in loose messy waves around her face. She was barefoot, dressed in a loose blue flannel blouse and… _Oh_. If Serena had appreciated the work trousers nothing could have possibly readied her for the sight of those skinny jeans. Tight to the point that Serena had to wonder for a moment how she'd managed to get them on, pale wash, and endlessly flattering. There was something, as well, about the contrast between macho mechanic Bernie and this softer, considerably more domestic version that made Serena’s stomach flip.

"Very nice" she said, gesturing to the apartment needing something, anything, to distract herself from staring at Bernie with little short of unbridled lust.

"Not what you were expecting?" Bernie had picked up the note of surprise in Serena's tone.

"Oh," Serena laughed, "I'll admit I had rather expected to see half an engine on your kitchen table or something." Bernie laughed at that as she padded through to the kitchen and fiddled with the knobs on the stove.

"I used to! When I first moved in, for sure." She threw a grin over her shoulder "was a right pain though. I was always leaving a tool or a part in the wrong place. I think I wasted about 3 hours a day just running up and down the stairs." She shrugged "so now I find it's easier to just leave work downstairs." She opened the fridge "can I offer you a drink, Serena?"

"Any chance of a glass of Shiraz?" Serena's hopes were dashed at the slow shake of Bernie's head.

"I'm afraid it's uh beer or water today."

"A beer then. Why not!" Serena refrained from mentioning that she hadn't had a beer since she was about 25. When in Rome and all that. She took the proffered drink from Bernie's hand and was surprised to find it crisp, fruity, refreshing. Unexpected but really nice. No match for a Shiraz, of course, but really quite nice.

* * *

"You've got some lovely pieces up" Serena said. After supper was done, she had taken it upon herself to stroll through Bernie’s sitting room, intently observing the art on the wall. "Is this a Barbara Howey?"

"It is, yeah. From—"

"Techniques of memory." Bernie was admittedly impressed, Serena smiled when she saw her reaction, "I saw it in exhibition in Norwich, must have been a decade ago now. Absolutely lovely work."

"I dated a woman who was the art director for an art gallery in town for a while" Bernie explained. "Taught me a lot about art, really gave me an appreciation for it."

"It's funny how we hang onto things like that, isn't it? Little relics of relationships long past." Serena walked through the rest of the room, came to sit on the sofa. Bernie was perched nearby on a stool, watching her as she walked. She was admittedly fascinated by the woman. Serena was gorgeous, clever, witty; Bernie had deeply enjoyed their evening. She was a bit embarrassed by just how much she'd talked but Serena had seemed genuinely interested in listening to her prattle on about engines and vehicle maintenance. Even if her eyes had glazed over slightly when Bernie had attempted to explain the internal workings of a transmission to her.

They sat in silence for a bit, the only sound disrupting the still Major's occasional snores. Then Serena tapped her fingers against the beer bottle in her hands for a few moments, looked up at Bernie.

"Can I ask you a question?" She asked. Bernie considered firing back an insipid remark noting she already had done so, saw the look on Serena's face and thought better of it.

"Of course" she said instead. Solemn and gentle.

"You, you don't have to answer. If I'm overstepping. But when did you know, really know, you were of the uh sapphic persuasion, if you will?”

"I. Ummm. Huh. I don't fully know. I think I had crushes without knowing they were crushes for the longest time. Probably some time in secondary school?" She took a sip of her beer. "But, well, if you want to know about my first girlfriend?" Serena's answering nod was firm. Bernie looked down at her lap, fingers picking at the label of her beer as she told the tale. It wasn't really something she ever spoke about but something about Serena made her want to open up. "I told you, I think, about how I ran off at 17. Moved to London and started an apprenticeship. Well I worked at the same shop for years and when I was, oh I don't know, nineteen? Twenty? This woman came in. She was older, late forties maybe, glamorous, beautiful. Had this gorgeous little Porsche 914 convertible. She left her sunglasses behind at the shop when she came to pick up her vehicle and I offered to run them over to her house after work. I remember, she took them out of my hands, thanked me, and then kissed me right there on the stoop. It just, it wasn't done. Not back then, not out in the open like that. But she didn't care what anyone thought. I think that was one of my favourite things about her. Anyway, though, she kissed me and I kissed her back and well" she looked up, shrugged. "That was that. I was absolutely head over heels."

"What happened?" Serena's tone was tender.

"It ended. As such things always do, I guess. Six months later. Turned out we were at different places in life, wanted different things. I was devastated. Heartbroken."

"Heartbreak feels infinite at twenty," Serena said with understanding.

"True." Bernie sighed, finished off her beer. "It was good though, in the long run. Not the break up of course, that, I don't know. But the relationship itself. Taught me a lot about who I was, you know?" Bernie looked away, bit her lip.

They fell silent again. Bernie didn't know what to say. Somehow 'when did you know you were straight' just didn't have the same emphasis as a conversation starter.

"I was 34" Serena said, unbidden. Her voice was quiet, a little shaky. "Recently divorced. My ex had Elinor for the weekend and some friends of mine dragged me out to a party. In Stepney, of all places. I tried to say no, didn't feel like going out, but they wore me down. I spent the whole night talking to this woman. Her name was Caroline and she was blonde and clever and halfway through my third glass of Shiraz I leaned over and kissed her. And, uh, she kissed me back and the rest is history."

"Oh." Bernie had not expected this. She gave her best attempt at a reassuring smile. Didn't know what the hell to say. She was a 51 year old lesbian, how the hell had no one ever come out to her before? Should she say it’s great? Offer congratulations? She opted for a question instead. "Ummm. Are you, I mean do you feel like…" she trailed off.

"Bisexual?" Serena let out a deep breath. "I think so.” Another deep breath. “I've never actually said the word out loud before." She looked up at Bernie. "Sorry."

"No. Nothing to be sorry for." Bernie tried another reassuring smile. Was gratified when Serena gave a little half smile in return. "Would it make you feel better to know I was 39 before I was able to actually use the word 'lesbian' with anyone other than my own reflection?"

Serena laughed, a little tremulous but still a laugh.

"It does actually, thank you,” she said.

After that, it was like the floodgates had opened. Bernie was able, with gentle prodding, to get Serena to tell her a variety of stories about her life. She learned more about Serena's daughter, her awful ex husband, her penchant for 'take it to the grave' grudges; laughed as Serena admonished her surprise by telling her 'every girl needs a hobby'. She listened attentively as Serena told her about the singular challenges of running the AAU and as she described the people she worked with, including the nurse with the four kids and the doctor who had opened his home to them and the ward's betting pool on when they would finally give in and admit they were madly in love with each other. A betting pool that Serena was officially against of course, but in which, she admitted to Bernie with a wink, she had quite a large stake herself. She also told Bernie all about her nephew, Jason. About the singular challenges of living with a person on the autism spectrum and the unfettered joy he had brought to her life.

Bernie was, in fact, dangerously close to getting addicted to listening to Serena speak. She loved the tone of her voice, her expressions, the way she drawled out the words when making a joke and the wicked gleam in her eyes when she said something particularly naughty.

Serena was also highly adept at getting Bernie to speak and Bernie found herself sharing stories from her life that she had never even thought to tell anyone else. They fell into an easy repartee and so it was with some shock that Serena eventually exclaimed "Oh dear lord! Is that really the time?"

Bernie whirled around to see 11:57 blinking insouciantly on the oven's clock. She double checked it on her mobile and yes it was correct. They had somehow managed to talk for hours without even realising it.

"Sorry."

"Sorry."

They both apologised at the same time, laughing at how in sync they were.

"I do need to be getting home, though" Serena said.

"Of course.”

Bernie walked Serena down to her car, opened the door for her and waited for her to slide in. "You know" she said, attempting a casual demeanour, "with a little sweet talking I can sometimes be convinced to make house calls for valued customers who can't change their own tyres."

"Is that so?"

"Yes." Bernie didn't know what she was saying really, didn't know if this would go anywhere, just knew she wanted the possibility of spending time with this fascinating woman again. "But you should probably have my mobile number, in that case."

"Makes sense" Serena smiled and pulled out her phone, tapped away at the screen and handed it over to Bernie "here, put your number in." Bernie did so, handed it back. She stepped away, closed the door, stood on the driveway and waited until Serena was out of sight, returning her little wave as she drove away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is the Caroline in Stepney supposed to be Caroline from Last Tango in Halifax? hells to the yes (see previous comment re: my incredible gayness)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nova and Crystal are amazing and keep me sane. That is all.

Bernie had woken up to a text the next morning that said ‘Hi this is Serena. Wanted you to have my number too. Even if I’m no help at all if you have a flat.’ It put a smile on her face that didn’t disappear all day long, despite a particularly troublesome customer and the Renault with the rear main giving her a not insignificant amount of grief. Two days later she got ‘Car’s running better than ever. Thanks. x’ She tried to ignore the ‘x’ at the end. Did her best not to dwell on it all day long. Didn’t quite succeed.

A week later, at the end of a long day, she was comfortably ensconced in bed with a new book when her mobile started buzzing. She grabbed it off the bedside table, smiled when she saw Serena’s name.

“I’ll have you know” Bernie said as she answered the phone “that if you’re ringing me to come and fix a flat you’ll need to do a _lot_ of sweet talking. I’ve just got comfy.”

“All tyres full of air and doing fine thanks.”

“Glad to hear it.” Bernie was, of course, though she would privately admit to a small twinge of sadness at not having an excuse to go see Serena again.

“Actually, the reason I called…” Serena trailed off and Bernie waited patiently. “I was planning to go to the movies tonight with my nephew, Jason, but he has gotten a better offer apparently, to hang out with his girlfriend and I’m left with nothing to do.”

“Oh.” Bernie hoped beyond hope that this was leading where she thought it might be.

“So. I was wondering if you would perhaps like to go with me? To see a movie, that is. Y-you know. As friends.”

“I would love to.”

“R- really? Oh. Good. Shall I pick you up?”

“Works for me.”

“That way we don’t have to entrust our lives to that ancient rust bucket of yours tonight.”

“Oi! If my memory serves me correctly, only one of us has had their car break down recently!” She laughed as she said it and Serena answered with a chuckle.

“Very well, be there in twenty?”

“See you then.” Bernie hung up and couldn’t stop the huge grin from spreading across her face. She was going to the movies with Serena. As friends, the more rational part of her brain reminded her. But _still_.

She paused in the midst of her jubilations as a thought hit her. What the hell was she going to wear?

Serena showed up, as promised, twenty minutes later. They saw the new Meryl Streep movie, about a woman who was awful at singing, Bernie choked on a laugh when Serena leaned over and whispered that at the very least she was better than Bernie. Bernie did her best not to gasp each time her hand brushed Serena’s as they reached into their shared bag of popcorn. Tried to concentrate on the movie and not how much she wanted to reach over and take Serena’s hand in her own, smooth her thumb over her skin, twine their fingers together in the dark of the theatre. When Serena dropped her back home there was a moment in the car when Bernie thought Serena might lean across the gear shift and kiss her but she didn’t (of course she didn’t, Bernie was being foolish and reading much too much into this as usual) and so Bernie awkwardly fumbled her way out of the car. She made her way into her house, managed not to drop her keys while unlocking the door, and when she was seated in bed once more she grabbed her mobile. She rewrote the text message about ten times Agonized over how it read, if it looked too desperate, if she was overstepping. Finally decided she had nothing to lose so she sent it off: ‘Had a great time. Would love to do it again sometime.’

The five minutes until she got a reply were the longest of her life. Finally her phone buzzed and she looked down at the screen, unable to halt the smile that appeared on her face as she read Serena’s text.

‘Coffee tmrw?’

* * *

Bernie meeting Jason came about with little fanfare. Serena and Bernie had been spending more and more time together, their lives outside of their respective work obligations filling with excursions of all kinds: nights spent drinking shiraz at a cozy little pub situated halfway between Bernie’s shop and the hospital, weekend mornings spent wandering the Holby City Farmer’s Market, afternoons passed with drives through the countryside, and endless hours in between finding Serena seated on the stool in Bernie’s shop petting Major as she watched Bernie work or comfortably ensconced on Bernie’s couch discussing their days. One day Serena was telling Bernie about a joke Jason had told her the night before and Bernie had said,

“I’d love to meet him.”

She had mumbled this around the hamburger she was inhaling as though she hadn’t eaten in years. Which was, Serena had discovered, how Bernie ate everything whether her last meal had been 8 hours previous or 8 minutes.

“Oh. W- would you?” Serena hadn’t been expecting that in the slightest.

“Of course,” there was that classic shrug again, “I mean, he’s a big part of your life, so,” Bernie finished the sentence by noisily up sucking the last of her cola through her straw. It was so casual, so straightforward. After the mess with Robbie, Serena couldn’t quite believe how simple it seemed to be for Bernie. Not that she should be comparing Bernie to Robbie because Robbie and she had been dating, obviously, while Bernie and she were merely friends.

Close friends.

And sometimes Bernie looked at her like… No. Just friends.

At any rate, that was how it came to be that Serena was seated at her kitchen table enjoying fish and chips with Bernie and Jason.

“How much can you lift, Bernie?” Jason asked, peering at her across the table. They were, of course, talking about World’s Strongest Man.

“Well, that depends Jason. My bench press is about 85kg but I can deadlift about 120kg.”

“That’s quite a lot,” he paused and cocked his head, “well for a woman of your age.” Serena was about to reprimand him but Bernie just laughed. “Do you think,” he pressed on, “you could lift Auntie Serena?”

Serena gulped as Bernie looked over, her eyes raking over Serena’s body.

“Yes I reckon I could.” Bernie replied. Serena was distracted from the conversation as her mind ran rampant with the mental image of Bernie lifting her up… She stopped herself forcefully. She did not need to be thinking about _that_ right then. She cast her mind back to the matter at hand, listening to Jason tell Bernie about his favourite events in the competition. When he asked Bernie what her favourites were, she told him ruefully that she had never before watched any of the competition. Jason leapt on that admission, immediately asking her if she’d like to watch an episode with him. Bernie assented and Jason moved to set up the tv. Serena reminded him of his table clearing duties, his evening chore, and he dutifully did as he was bid. As he was bringing a teetering pile of plates and cutlery to the kitchen Serena turned.

“Sorry,” she apologized.

“For what?” Bernie looked over, brow furrowed.

“I just. You probably don’t want to spend your evening watching old World’s Strongest Man episodes with my nephew.”

“Serena,” Bernie reached out and covered one of Serena’s hands with one of her own—and Serena could not remember a time when Bernie had been the one to initiate physical contact—“stop worrying. I’m here because I want to be. And I’m having a really good time.” She squeezed Serena’s hand gently, “no using me as an excuse because you don’t want to watch World’s Strongest Man for the zillionth time.” Bernie’s grin was quick but eager and Serena suddenly felt ridiculous for being anxious in the first place. Of course Bernie was here because she wanted to be, it had been her idea in the first place. Mollified, she allowed herself to be ushered into the other room by a determined Jason and graciously accepted a top-up of her wine glass from Bernie.

By the end of the second episode, she was leaned up against Bernie, cozy and comfortable with her head pillowed on Bernie’s shoulder. Bernie was engrossed in the show, expertly prodding Jason for more details about each event, their origins and how they were judged. The sound of them getting along so well was incredibly comforting and in that instance Serena felt nothing but warmth and happiness, the slight buzz of Shiraz lending her cheeks a slight flush.

Any suggestion that Serena had dozed off partway through the third episode and was rudely awakened by Bernie’s movements when she eventually got up to leave was strict hearsay to which Serena would never cop.

* * *

Bernie was just in the midst of closing up shop, looking forward to spending the evening with Serena when her phone buzzed. She opened it to a text from Serena.

‘Can I take a rain cheque on tonight?’

‘Of course’, Bernie typed back, ‘something come up?’

‘Just exhausted.’ Bernie couldn't help but smile at Serena’s use of four tired emoji faces in a row, ‘long day.’

Bernie replied with a little face with the slanted mouth that seemed better able to convey sympathy than she could hope to do in a paragraph. ‘Hope it gets better,’ she added. Her finger hovered over the heart emoji before thinking the better of it and closing the app instead.

Bernie drummed her fingers on her toolbox, unable to put Serena's texts out of her mind. She wanted to do something for her: felt a deep intrinsic need to make her feel better. In a minute she was struck with inspiration and she quickly set to work to put her plan in motion.

An hour later Bernie was in the parking lot of Holby City Hospital, not far from the place she had first met Serena all those months ago. She parked her vehicle and got out. It was around the time that she had originally planned to pick Serena up so she knew she would be coming to the end of her shift. Leaning up against the side of the vehicle Bernie pulled out her phone and texted Serena.

‘I'm in the parking lot. Come meet me.’

‘???? I thought we cancelled tonight’ she got back almost immediately.

‘We did. Just come down and meet me please?’ Bernie waited, watching the three little grey dots on her screen impatiently. Finally she got a response.

‘Ok.’

She waited until she saw Serena walking out the door and then moved towards her. When Serena saw her Bernie was quick to raise her hands in a defensive gesture.

“I'm not stalking you I promise.”

Serena looked exhausted as she looked up at Bernie and Bernie settled for gesturing Serena to follow her. It didn’t take them too long to reach their destination, the vehicle Bernie had driven over. Instead of her usual fiat Bernie had used her parts van. It was an older vehicle, had faded paint on the side that read ‘New Era Auto Repair’. Bernie opened up the back door and Serena gasped at the sight. Bernie had strung up fairy lights all over the roof of the van’s spacious cargo area. The floor was covered in blankets and pillows and in the middle there was a picnic basket, lying open, with the top of a wine bottle peeking out from inside. There was a speaker on one end and Bernie had set it up with her phone so the soft strains of Tchaikovsky filled the air. Serena walked inside and sunk down onto one of the cushions. Bernie stood in the doorway, hands in her jeans’ pockets.

“I um I uh thought,” she tried to explain, “that with your uh rough day you might need some time to just be alone and de-stress and seeing as Jason isn't expecting you for a while anyway…” She bit her lip. “I uh brought a book so I can just go sit up front and wait til y- you're done.” Bernie turned to go.

“Stay. Please.” Serena’s voice was small, pleading. Bernie stopped, turned back, let Serena tug her onto the pillow beside her. She twiddled her thumbs for a moment, then leaned forward.

“Wine?” She offered Serena. She wasn't prepared for Serena to burst into tears.

Bernie was historically not great at dealing with crying women. Her previous method of dealing with it was usually to just leave. Not in a cruel way per se. But just to politely make her exit as quickly as possible and leave the person to deal with their feelings as they saw fit. Her other option was a hug. She could count twice in her life she had chosen that route.

She didn’t feel she knew Serena well enough to hug her, but also did not feel the urge to flee. She settled for placing her hand on her shoulder, then moving to encircle her shoulders with her arm, resting her forehead against Serena’s as she sobbed.

After a minute, Serena lifted her hands, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes.

“Sorry.” She apologized weakly.

“No. No it's fine. Do you want to talk about it?”

Serena took a shaky breath, dropped her hands into her lap.

“There was a car crash. 3 kids with their dad, he was drunk, the kids weren't even wearing seatbelts.”

“Oh god. That's awful. Did they…” Bernie trailed off,  of knowing how to say it. At Serena's wordless head shake in reply she tightened her grip on her shoulders. Serena’s breaths were shaky.

“They were so young, Bernie! We're supposed to be removed from it all. As doctors we shouldn’t let it affect us, I know, but some days it just hits you harder than others.”

“Of course it would,” Bernie agreed, “I can only imagine.” Serena nodded against her, seeming to take comfort in Bernie’s words.

They stayed like that for a few more minutes, Bernie trying not to think too much about the feeling of Serena pressed against her side, or the fact that she could feel each exhale of breath against her skin, or that if she turned her head to the side ever so slightly...

Then Serena pulled away, reached for the bottle of wine and held it up.

“This, I think, is exactly what the doctor ordered.”

“I figured.” Bernie shot her a small smile. “You probably have a prescription for Shiraz somewhere, don’t you?”

“Maybe…”

Bernie was about to grab the corkscrew out of the basket and hand it to her when Serena reached into her purse and pulled out one of her own. At what must have been a slightly shocked expression on Bernie’s part Serena grinned.

“It just wouldn't do to be in a position to have a bottle of Shiraz and not be able to open it now would it?”

“Wouldn't do at all. What would you do then? Break the top off like a barbarian?” Bernie was kidding but Serena ducked her head in shame. “No!” Bernie exclaimed. “Don't tell me…”

“Look,” Serena jerked the cork out of the bottle as she spoke, “it was a very long time ago and it was my only option.”

“Right. Because just waiting until you could get a corkscrew would be…”

“Sacrilege my dear Berenice. Don't even suggest it.”

The rest of the evening was spent quietly chatting and eating. For Bernie, the effort she had gone to was made more than worth it when Serena reached over and squeezed her hand, whispered her thanks, her lips brushing Bernie’s ear as she spoke.

* * *

It was a gorgeous fall day, around the end of September, and Bernie and Serena were wandering through the rows of cars at the Holby Classic Car Show. Serena had finally managed to convince Bernie, mostly, that she liked listening to Bernie talk about cars so Bernie was eagerly explaining the vehicles they walked past. She would stop at the ones she really liked, pointing out the modifications or original pieces and engaging the owners in conversations about their vehicles and the efforts to which they had gone to rebuild them. Serena joined in on the conversations as well, not letting her limited knowledge of cars keep her from charming everyone they met and Bernie was once again in awe of Serena’s ability to fit in no matter where they want.

She was incredibly intelligent as well, something Bernie had known for a long time, but still Bernie’s heart swelled a little with pride as Serena took the comments Bernie made and put them into action, doing her best to name year make and model of the vehicles they came across. She was sometimes right, sometimes very wrong. But Bernie’s favourite was when they would come across a vehicle that Serena had no possible clue about. Then Serena would grin and make up some sort of name for the car, sending Bernie into peals of laughter as the names grew more and more absurd each time.

The air was crisp, the sun was shining, and Bernie was overwhelmed with the simple beauty of the day. The only thing that could possibly make it better would be… Well, yes. But Serena was her friend, maybe her best friend even (Serena was certainly hers, Bernie was unsure if she was Serena’s), and she wasn’t supposed to feel this way about her best friend. So she tamped down those thoughts of what she could be having and enjoyed what she was allowed to have instead.

After a spot she excused herself to the loo, left Serena wandering about. She dallied a bit, grabbing a couple of coffees and pastries from one of the food trucks that had set up on the outskirts of the show before returning to Serena. The sight she found was less than ideal. Serena was standing beside a red Saab 96 and talking with a man. He was tall, hair dark and slightly greasy. By his lascivious grin and Serena’s pained expression he was hitting on her and Serena was not having any success in persuading him that she was not interested.

Bernie leapt into action without thinking about it.

She walked up to Serena’s side, standing just far enough in front of her to put herself between Serena and this man. She leaned into Serena, brushed her lips over hers in a quick kiss. She had meant it as just a brief little hello, making it obvious to this man that he didn’t have a shot with Serena. Serena apparently, had other ideas. She flung her arms around Bernie’s neck immediately, holding her close as she kissed her soundly. After a couple of  minutes they separated, both panting for air. Bernie handed Serena one of the coffees. She was quite proud of the fact that she had managed not to drop both on the ground the moment Serena had dipped her tongue into her mouth.

“Thanks Love” Serena said, taking a sip of the coffee. Bernie gave herself a mental little shake, committed her mind to the task at hand and decided she would think about the kiss later.

“Great car,” she said then to Serena’s would-be suitor. His eyes were bulging out of his head and his face looked a little red. Bernie slipped her free hand into Serena’s and gave her a little smile. “Trust this one to make a beeline for the Saabs as soon as I leave her alone. She just loves them.” The man opened his mouth a couple of times but didn’t reply. Bernie couldn’t help but smirk. “I saw a 95 wagon over there,” Bernie said gesturing into the distance, “want to go see it Dear?”

“I would love to.” Serena turned to the man and gave him a withering smile, “nice to meet you, Stan.” He still didn’t reply and so they walked off, sharing victorious grins once their backs were turned.

Their handhold didn’t end even once they were out of Stan’s eyeshot. Bernie told herself that it was for security: in case they ran into him again. It had nothing to do with how nice it felt to have Serena’s fingers tangled with hers. Nothing at all.

* * *

“Shit.” Serena was in the midst of surgery on a patient from a nasty RTC when she suddenly remembered. It was Friday.

“What is it?” Raf asked, worried eyes meeting hers.

“I completely forgot I promised Jason tonight that I would-- Fuck!” She continued to work for a few seconds as her mind raced trying to figure a solution for her problem. Then inspiration struck. “Can someone grab Fletch for me please?”

Someone did, Fletch came in the door, sterile mask held in front of his mouth.

“What do you need Serena?”

“I need you to go into my office, grab my purse out of my bag, there’s a piece of paper in with the bills and I need the number off of it.” He nodded and went off, coming back a couple of minutes later with the number. Serena had one of the nurses dial the phone in the theatre for her and hold it to her head, listening to the rings with mounting anxiety.

“Hello?” Finally Bernie answered.

“Hi, Bernie?”

“Serena?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Hi. How are you?”

“Elbow deep in a man’s large bowel at the moment.”

“Sounds like a blast.”

“Yes. Well. It looks like I’m going to be here for a while and ummm I completely forgot that I was supposed to take Jason and his friend to this pub quiz thing...”

“Say no more.”

“R- Really? I mean, just drop him off. If you could. I can pick him up, probably--”

“Serena?” Bernie’s tone was gentle yet firm as she cut her off

“Yes?”

“I’ve got this. You focus on saving that man’s life. I’ll take care of Jason.”

She hung up before Serena could thank her.

When Serena finally got out of theatre it was a quarter past midnight and she was bone tired. She smiled when she opened her mobile to find a couple of messages from Bernie. ‘Everything taken care of’ read the first one, followed by three little thumbs up emojis, and then, finally, ‘text me when you’re on your way home.’ She shot off a quick ‘leaving work now’ dropped her phone into her bag, pulled on her coat, her muscles screaming at the exertion, and walked down to her car.

She pulled into the drive, exhausted, grateful she’d managed to avoid a collision of her own on the way and was shocked to see Bernie’s car parked there. She let herself into the house, followed the sounds of voices and walked into the kitchen where she was greeted with the sight of Bernie and Jason sitting at the table. They had an encyclopedia open between them and each had a bowl of ice cream. They seemed to be discussing something related to ornithology. At the sound of Serena’s bag thudding onto the counter they both turned around. Bernie still had her spoon in her mouth and Serena’s heart did a little tumble at the cuteness of her: eyes wide, hair wild, spoon hanging out of her mouth like a child, and at the domesticity of it all: Bernie, barefoot, smiling, spending time alone with Jason, looking all the while like she belonged there.

“Auntie Serena!” Jason exclaimed. “Bernie took Darren and I to the pub quiz and she came in and played with us and she was amazing! We won!”

“Really?” Serena couldn’t help but smile at Jason’s ebullience. Looked over his head and caught Bernie’s eyes. Mouthed ‘thank you’. Bernie gave her a tiny smile in response.

“Yes. It was splendid. She doesn’t just know about cars either. She knows a lot. Probably even more than you do and she never even went to university.”

“That’s probably not quite right, Jason” Bernie admonished. “We know about different things is all.”

“Maybe next time Auntie Serena can come with us too.” Jason’s smile was bright as he suggested it, Serena was just about to cut in and say something about how this had been a one time thing and Jason could hardly expect Bernie to come along with him every week but before she could Bernie just said

“Maybe.” Made eye contact with Serena as she said it, and there was the flip flop of her stomach again.

About fifteen minutes later, after he had explained in detail their path to victory at the pub, Jason announced that he was tired and headed to bed, leaving Bernie and Serena alone in Serena’s kitchen. They didn’t move at first, let the silence stretch between them as can only happen in the wee hours just past midnight.

“You should sit down, you must be exhausted.” It was Bernie, shockingly enough, who broke the silence.

Serena nodded, slumped into the closest chair. She looked up at Bernie in surprise as she grabbed a bottle of wine from some place previously unseen and raised it up, one eyebrow cocked. “I’ve had it breathing since you texted” she said by way of explanation.

“What the hell would I do without you?” Serena asked, her voice warmer than she would usually allow, as Bernie poured a glass and slid it towards her. Bernie mumbled something Serena couldn’t make out, bit her lip and looked away. “Bernie?” Serena waited until Bernie was looking at her before she continued. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.” Bernie replied, giving Serena a slight smile before looking down. “I. Um. I should be going though.”

“Oh. Of course.”

Serena walked Bernie to the door, waited as she pulled on her coat and shoes. Serena was quite shocked when, just before walking out of the house, Bernie turned around and caught Serena in a quick hug. She squeezed her close for a quick second, then ran out the door and to her car before Serena could say a thing.

* * *

Things came to a head, as they all eventually do, a couple of weeks later. They had been for one of their now-regular Sunday afternoon drives, weaving through the roads near Holby in an aimless exploration. More for the sake of being in the car and driving then with any specific destination in mind. And now they were making their way back home.

Dusk was just beginning to set as they neared the city, the lights of cars ahead of them dotting their view. Bernie was driving, as she always did on such excursions, and she was tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. The soft strains of Adele played on the car stereo. Bernie felt at peace.

They were stopped at a red light when Serena opened her mouth to speak.

“Um. Look. This is a bit awkward, and I wish there were a better way to ask this but, well, I’m starting to get a tad confused and even Jason was asking about it and you know how he is and, well… Sorry. But I do need to know and, erm, the only way I can think of to find out is just to come right out and ask. So.” She took a deep breath. “Are we, um, dating?”

That had not, in any way, been what Bernie had been expecting.

It was, all things considered, a good thing they were stopped at a red light because she turned and stared at Serena for a moment.

Then looked back at the road. Her fingers stopped their tapping. She took a breath. Then another. Tried to figure out what the hell she should say. What was the right answer? Could she say yes? Or no but that she wanted to? Were they actually dating and Bernie just hadn’t realised it? What kind of answer was Serena expecting? Had she waited too long to say something?

The silence was becoming deafening.

Bernie reached out and turned up the volume on the stereo. The light turned green. She put the car into gear and accelerated forward.

Cursed herself as she did it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the radio when someone asks if you're dating thing? shoutout to a friend of mine who did exactly that with a cute person she really liked and inspired that bit lol


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long! I had an absolutely hellish week at work, I'll try to update again soon. thanks everyone for reading!!

After the whole deal with the stereo, Serena didn’t talk to Bernie for three days. No calls, no texts. Bernie put her phone on the loudest notification settings possible and jumped every time it went off. Hope would rise as she reached for the device, only to be dashed as she saw it wasn’t Serena. On the fourth day, however, Serena did text. She didn’t say a single thing to Bernie about the incident and Bernie certainly wasn’t about to bring it up. The first time they hung out after that Serena had seemed more reserved than usual, snatching her hand back as she had been about to touch Bernie, her eyes guarded. But a week and a half later Serena seemed determined to forget it had ever happened (a plan of attack Bernie went along with mostly because it was a plan where Bernie had none and if it was what Serena wanted then it was what Bernie would do).

It was a Friday three weeks after their fruitless non-conversation that Bernie’s phone buzzed with a text from Serena.

‘You awaek?’ It was a quarter past eleven and Bernie had been about to get ready for bed but she messaged back immediately.

‘Yes,’ she replied.'’That car of yours broken down again?' She didn’t have to wait long for a reply.

‘I definitely can’t drive home. Come help????’ It was followed by three sad faces, prayer hands, a car, and quite inexplicably a lollipop and a unicorn. Bernie didn’t think much of it. She pulled her shoes and coat on as she waited for Serena to text her the address and then she was off.

She pulled up in front of a nice house in a fairly affluent neighbourhood not far from the hospital and double checked the address. She was in the right place. By the number of cars parked nearby and shadows of people illuminated in the windows of the home it looked like they were having a party. She knocked, waited, a man answered the door. He was late thirties maybe, brown hair, beard.

"Hi. I'm here for Serena Campbell." She tried not to fidget as he looked her up and down.

"Huh. Okay then. I'm Fletch" he held out his hand and Bernie took it in a firm grasp. She recognized the name, one of Serena's coworkers maybe?

"Pleasure. Bernie."

"Oh" he released her hand but his eyes had lit up. " _Oh_. You're Bernie!"

"Yes." Had he heard of her? Bernie was confused, she couldn't decipher the look on his face.

"Any chance you're a mechanic?"

"I am, yes." Had Serena maybe mentioned her?

"Well come inside then" he gestured her in, closed the door behind her. "Serena's just in the other room. She didn't mention you'd be coming over."

"Oh. Sorry. She just texted me. Um about her car, that is."

"No problem, the more the merrier!" He grinned, wide and infectious, led her into a spacious sitting room and over to a group of people near a couch.

"Raf" he called out as they neared them. A shorter dark haired man whirled around and the pieces finally clicked in Bernie's brain. Of course, Raf and Fletch. "This is _Bernie_." The emphasis of his tone only served to contribute to Bernie's bewilderment.

"Bernie!" Raf grinned at her, then turned to Fletch "of course!" A young woman standing beside him with brown skin and a whole lot of curly black hair sniggered and Bernie couldn't help but feel some joke was being made at her expense. She grimaced, feeling foolish and out of place. The girl introduced herself as Morven and Bernie shook her and Raf’s hands politely. "You here for Serena?" Raf asked Bernie and at her nod he motioned for her to follow him. They found Serena in the kitchen, bottle of Shiraz in hand. She was talking loudly, laughing, and wavering on her feet: quite obviously trashed. Bernie turned to Raf.

"Who the hell let her have so much wine?" She demanded hotly. Raf looked at her in surprise.

"Let her?" He was obviously flummoxed. "Nobody 'lets' Serena Campbell have Shiraz. You just buy a couple crates of the stuff before you invite her over and pray to god it's enough." The words would be harsh had he not ended them with a fond grin. "Sorry by the way" he murmured "about earlier. Terribly rude of us it was. It's just Serena spent a good portion of the night telling anyone who would listen about how she had the 'prettiest, smartest, strongest mechanic in the country' we were all confused, imagining some bloke named Bernie with a beer gut and too much ear hair or some such but, well," he gestured to her "makes sense now."

"Oh." Bernie was still confused. She might have pressed on but she was interrupted.

"Bernie!" Serena shouted. She had noticed her presence. "You came!" She tottered over to Bernie, grinning from ear to ear.

"I did. Under false pretenses, I might add" Bernie admonished, grabbing the bottle from her hand and passing it off to Raf.

"What?"

"You told me your car was broken down,” she pressed, she wasn’t annoyed really but she felt some small outrage was called for.

"Did not! You inf-inf-inferred" She said the words with such vigour that her whole body swayed with the effort and Bernie reached out and grabbed her waist to prevent her from falling flat on the ground.

"I think you implied" Bernie shot back. Serena turned around in Bernie's grasp so she was facing her and twined her arms around Bernie's neck.

"Are you angry?" Her exaggerated pout was adorable and Bernie couldn't help but smile indulgently.

"No. Of course not. But you could have just told me the truth. I would have come and got you."

“Really?" Serena's voice was warm—perhaps held something more than warmth—and Bernie couldn't stay like that, couldn't be pressed up against her and staring into her eyes any longer because Serena was way too drunk and they were just friends, after all. She cleared her throat.

"C'mon Ms. Campbell. Let's get you home."

She managed to get Serena home without her either passing out or vomiting in Bernie's car, a feat for which she mentally patted herself on the back. Bernie parked in the drive and went to Serena's door to help her get out. Serena was really sloshed. She had to be practically hauled out of the car. Once she was standing, however, she was wilier than expected. She used the advantage of having Bernie on the back foot and before Bernie knew it Serena had her pinned up against the side of her car, her body pressed up against hers, her hands on her hips.

"Bernie?" Serena’s voice was quiet.

"Y-yes Serena?"  Bernie did her best not to let her voice waver as she replied.

"Do you think I'm beautiful?" Serena looked up at her as she said it, all luminous eyes and plump lips and uncertainty. She looked so vulnerable, Bernie couldn't help but give her a real answer, her drunkenness, the knowledge she probably wouldn't remember this in the morning, giving Bernie a licence to be more honest than she would usually ever be.

"You're the most gorgeous woman in the world." Bernie's words were barely more than a whisper but they were said with complete integrity.

"Do you want to kiss me?" Serena asked then.

"Constantly" Bernie answered. Serena moved in closer, her lips just a hairsbreadth from Bernie's own. The feeling of Serena pressed up so close against her was stirring the embers that had been sitting in the pit of Bernie’s stomach since that morning when Serena had yelled at her, probably. She had thought that she’d missed her chance entirely, through her own stupidity no less, but maybe, just maybe there was still hope.

"Then what's stopping you?” Serena’s voice was low and throaty. “You're not being a very good lesbian tonight Bernie."

Bernie laughed, slipped out of Serena's grasp, turned her around but kept a respectable distance between them.

"On the contrary, Serena. I am doing everything in my power to be a very good lesbian tonight." She took her arm "let's get you inside and in bed." Serena made an excited noise of assent. "Alone" Bernie added firmly. Bernie brought Serena inside, inquired about Jason and was informed he was out for the night, was grateful for that: she really liked the boy but explaining to him why she was bringing his aunt home completely plastered was not on her top ten list of things to do. She watched Serena make a disastrous attempt to climb the stairs and in the interests of her not breaking her neck went to help her. "Do you trust me?" She asked and at Serena's nod said, "okay, hold on." Bernie knelt a bit, put one arm at Serena's back, the other behind her knees and swept her into her arms.

"You're strong" Serena giggled into her ear.

"You'd better not retch on me" Bernie replied.

* * *

The next morning, Serena woke up to the sunlight streaming in the windows and blinked against the harsh glare. Her head was pounding and her mouth felt dry and disgusting. She was glad to find a water and two ibuprofen on her bedside table. After she had drunk her fill and visited the loo she noticed the note that had been under the glass. The scrawled words were large and messy and instantly recognisable. _Good luck with the hangover. Text me if you feel up to breakfast. Bernie. x_ the note read. Serena furrowed her brow in confusion. She remembered being at Raf and Fletch’s place for a party and other than that it was all a little fuzzy. Had she called Bernie? She had a vague flash of memory: Bernie’s hands on her waist and her arms flung around Bernie’s neck. Oh god. Had she thrown herself at Bernie in a drunken mess? How very embarrassing. Still, though, she re-read the note. Bernie had ended it with an ‘x’, a kiss. She was sure nothing had really happened but she couldn’t help but stare at the inked letter on the page.

It gave her something she hadn’t allowed herself since that fateful car conversation.

Hope.

She held the note to her chest for a moment, sighing deeply. And then she went searching for her phone. Breakfast seemed like a great idea.

* * *

Bernie really liked Serena. Really, _really_ liked her. She liked her soft brown hair and her soulful brown eyes and her beautiful mouth. She liked the way the lines on her face deepened when she smiled, the low tone her voice took on when she was murmuring something just for Bernie. She liked every single thing about her. More than liked her, very possibly. She wanted to spend every single moment of every single day with her. She wanted to hold her hand, to cuddle close to her, to kiss her in the rain. She wanted to be her girlfriend. Wanted it more than she felt she had ever wanted anything else in her life.

Unfortunately she had gone and cocked it all up with that stupid stereo stunt. It was such a typically Bernie thing to do, really, pretty girl gives her a perfect opportunity to say how she feels about her and she manages to stick not just one but both her feet in her mouth without actually even saying anything. She wished she could do it over again. Maybe say ‘yes’, or ‘I’d like to be’, or maybe saying nothing at all but just reaching over to slip her hand into Serena’s warm grasp, squeeze her fingers, give her a little smile that said everything she couldn’t. What was the correct way to say ‘hey remember that time you gave me an opening to tell you I liked you and I did the daftest thing possible, well could you do it again please’? Right. There wasn’t one. Which meant Bernie would have to use her words. Not her forte, to say the least.

She could just kiss her. She had thought about it. A lot. In fact in recent weeks she had thought of little else, in fact. Had thought about pressing Serena up against a wall, her car, any available surface and snogging her until she was about to pass out from lack of oxygen. Had thought about digging her fingers into her hair, wrapping an arm around her waist, pulling her closer and closer until they were no longer two separate entities but rather one united being. Had tried very hard to think of something—anything—else late at night when she snuck a hand into her pants and ground herself to orgasm, always invariably gasping out Serena’s name as she came.

She was worried, however, that a kiss would be too licentious. She didn’t want Serena to think that this was mere attraction, lust manifesting into a dalliance. There was lust, of course, and want and need but there was also something else, something more. She wanted Serena to feel appreciated, respected, cared for. The coward in her said to wait for Christmas. For the easy excuse of mistletoe. Or maybe Valentine’s day. A heart-shaped box of chocolates pre-empting the need for words.

She didn’t want to be a coward though. Her father had always told her that to be a Wolfe meant to be brave and to serve with pride. She had never felt very brave, at least not when it came to emotions, but Serena made her want to be brave. Maybe that was enough.

Bernie looked down at her hands, realised she had stopped moving at some point. Was just standing in her kitchen, half-cleaned plate and dishcloth in hand, caught up in thinking about the girl she liked. She laughed at that. She was like a lovesick teenager. She got back to work, squared her shoulders and let out the breath she had been holding.

She was just going to have to woo her. Make an impassioned declaration of her feelings. She could do that, for sure.

She would try, at least.

* * *

Bernie kept thinking about Serena. She couldn’t stop. She thought about how it had felt when she had pressed her body up against Bernie’s, her breath hot on Bernie’s cheek. What it would have been like had Serena not been drunk, had she been capable of consenting and Bernie could have kissed her just as Serena asked. She couldn’t help but let her mind run away with the imagery. It was beginning to be torture, being around Serena and not being able to touch her (ravish her) at every available moment.

She spun around, her mind not at all on the task at hand, and managed to slam her head against the rear diff housing of the Land Rover she was working on.

_Fuck_.

It was completely idiotic. She knew better. Of course she knew better. She had been at this for years and she knew that her job was dangerous, she knew she could hurt herself if she didn’t pay attention. And now some pretty girl comes into her life…

She lifted her hand to her head, wincing as she hit the spot. The wetness was a bad sign and as she brought her hand in front of her face she got confirmation. Blood. A fair amount of it by the feel of things. She needed to stanch the flow. Her vest was too dirty, as were her shop rags. She moved upstairs, eminently grateful she lived just above the shop, grabbed a couple of kitchen towels, along with a jacket and her wallet and keys. She did a cursory tidy of her workplace, towel held to her head as she worked, and then surveyed the garage. The Land Rover could wait until tomorrow and it was nearing the end of the day so all her other customers had been taken care of. She was safe to go take care of this rather nasty situation.

Bernie pulled the towel away from her head, tentatively touched her wound again. _Ouch_. She assessed herself, she didn’t think it was bad enough to bother 999. She was fine, after all, probably just needed a couple of stitches. That being said, she did not think it was a wise idea to drive. So she pulled on her coat, left the blood soaked towel in the shop sink, put the clean one to her head, and stepped out into the brisk autumn air.

It was only about a twenty minute stroll to Holby City Hospital, though it was cold enough for Bernie’s cheeks to be red and tingling by the time she got there. She calmly made her way to the emergency department and checked herself in, sitting herself in the waiting area and preparing for a long while on the worn seat.

She got in remarkably quickly; a nurse took her towel and Bernie assented to letting it be thrown away. She was seated in the bed with a young doctor attending her (couldn’t be long out of med school, that one), asking her to follow a torch with her eyes, when she realised she had made an error. She had not at any point told Serena that she was here.

Knowing Serena as she did, and by this point Bernie thought she knew her quite well indeed, Bernie was aware that Serena might be… Displeased were she to find out Bernie had been in her hospital without her knowing about it.

“Pardon me,” she said to the doctor.

“Yes?”

“I’m just wondering if you might be able to uh call AAU and let Serena Campbell know that I’m here?”

“Friend of hers, are you?” The doctor seemed bored, maybe slightly annoyed by the request.

“Um. Yes. I guess. She just, she will likely be rather cross if she finds out I was here and nobody let her know.”

“Fine,” the doctor sighed and moved over to the nearby nurse’s station. Bernie leaned back and listened to the one side of the conversation she was privy to with interest.

“Is Ms. Campbell around?” She heard her ask. Then, “oh hi. Ms. Campbell. I’m just calling because I have a, ummm” she paused to flip open the chart, “Berenice Griselda Wolfe here? And she asked—” She paused to listen. “Head laceration.” She waited again. “Just some stitches, I think.” Then a slightly longer pause. “Oh. Okay. I will see to that, I guess.” She hung up the phone and moved away. Walked up to an older doctor and murmured something to him.

“Move her to AAU?” Bernie heard him exclaim. “Why in the blazes would we do that?” He listened as the other doctor spoke again, then strode over to the nurse’s station and grabbed the phone himself. “Serena Campbell, please.” He drummed his fingers on the counter as he no doubt waited for Serena to come to the phone. “Serena, hi. Why the hell am I sending this Wolfe woman to you? It’s absurd she—” He broke off. He straightened his spine as he listened to the voice on the other end of the phone, his face paling slightly. After a minute he hung up and turned to the younger doctor once more. “Get Miss Wolfe to AAU,” he said with a helpless shrug. “Pronto.”

Bernie would be lying if she said she hadn’t thought about this kind of scenario before. Herself hurt or ailing and Serena tending to her. Serena’s warm eyes and gentle hands making her feel better again. She never went quite as far as a ridiculous nurse outfit in her mind’s eye, but still the idea of Serena tending to her needs was enticing to say the least. The reality was a fair bit more… Vehement.

Bernie was settled in a bed on AAU—having waved a hello in passing to Morven whom she remembered from the night Serena had been too drunk to drive herself home—when Serena found her. She was furious. Her eyes were dark and fierce, her mouth in a hard line.

“What the hell were you thinking?” She asked as she strode up to Bernie’s side.

“Um…” Bernie couldn’t really think of an answer. Thankfully it didn’t seem like Serena needed one.

“What the hell did you do? Run into a car?” At Bernie’s blush Serena scoffed. “Of course. Of course! And then instead of calling 999 like you _should_ have done, I am informed that you walked here? With a kitchen towel held to your head?”

“I—” Bernie tried to speak, was cut off immediately.

“Oh big macho mechanic are we! Don’t need proper medical attention, of course not! I’m sure you can just bolt it back together and keep working and bleed out on your shop floor.” She pulled out a torch, snapped, “follow the light.”

“What are you doing?”

“Checking for a concussion, who knows what kind of damage you did.” Serena was staring her down.

“Oh.” Bernie tried for a last protest. “Well the emergency department already did that.”

“Ha. I’m sure they did. Put some bloody F1 on it who doesn’t know which end of a stethoscope is which I’m sure.” Serena was not letting this go, so Bernie dutifully went along with her wishes. Seemingly satisfied, Serena motioned to a nurse and asked for a list of things Bernie didn’t understand in the slightest. That taken care of, Serena turned back and continued her diatribe. “And then I get a ring from some nobody in the ED because you couldn’t even send me a text to let me know you’d split your head in two! Ridiculous. Nearly gave me a heart attack right here, hearing your name like that.” Serena shook her head disparagingly. The nurse came up with a tray of supplies for Serena and Serena pulled on a pair of gloves before going to attend to the wound. Despite the heat of her words, Serena’s hands were gentle. Bernie still hissed when Serena touched the gash. “Hurts?” Serena asked, and her tone was gentler than before. Bernie nodded, gritting her teeth. Serena called the nurse back over and asked for morphine, then turned back. “Bear with me here, Bernie, I just need to get this cleaned up.”

“Serena shouldn’t you, I mean, you’re the head of the department don’t you have someone else who could be doing this? It seems rather below your pay grade.”

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Berenice Griselda Wolfe. Now be quiet and stay still.”

Bernie did so. She was grateful for the injection of morphine when it came, when the pain relief finally took effect Bernie was a little surprised. She hadn’t realised just how much it had hurt til the hurt was gone. Serena was capable and efficient (Bernie would’ve expected nothing less). She applied a local anaesthetic and stitched Bernie’s wound and Bernie fell even harder for her as she did it. She was beautiful here, in her element. Even angry. Then again, Bernie had always found Serena especially gorgeous when she was angry. Once Serena was done she sat down on the bed beside Bernie. The anger had dissipated and now she just looked a little tired and a little worried. She cupped Bernie’s cheek with her hand, her thumb smoothing over the line of Bernie’s cheekbone.

“Gave me the fright of my life, you did,” she told Bernie. “Next time just call me?” She smiled at Bernie’s nod, then leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. “Get some rest.”

Bernie didn’t sleep, however. She busied herself by leaning back in the bed and surveying the department. She had a fairly good view from where she had been placed. She liked it. The ward was busy, bustling, but organised. Serena walked past her an innumerable number of times, seemingly always doing six things at once. She would be checking over a chart, ordering medications and tests, triaging a new arrival, trading barbs and a smile with a coworker, then making the rounds all over again. Bernie was sad that she wasn’t there under better circumstances. She had seen Serena disappear into her office a couple of times and she daydreamed a little of being in there. Perhaps perching on her desk as Serena worked, leaning in close, or even sitting in an extra chair, content to just be there wrapped up in the warmth of Serena’s presence as she did paperwork or whatever else she tended to in there.

After a stretch of time had passed, Serena found the time to come see her again.

“How are you feeling?” She asked, standing beside the bed.

“Good,” Bernie smiled up at her. Her tongue felt awkward and heavy in her mouth but she felt moved to speak so she did. “You’re amazing.” Serena laughed at that.

“Had a bit too much of the morphine, have we?”

“No. No, Serena,” Bernie reached out and tugged her down to perch on the side of the bed, “I’m serious. This whole place it’s all because of you. You keep it running and running so well it’s incredible.” Bernie could feel her eyes shining with sincerity as she spoke, “you’re incredible.”

“Oh. Well. Thank you.” Serena said the words gruffly and patted Bernie’s arm a little awkwardly. “I don’t want you to be alone tonight, come stay with me? I promise not to let Jason force you into watching quiz shows all night.”

“Mmmm. Don’t think you can use my plight as an excuse to get you out of watching Countdown reruns.” Bernie grinned, wide and honest, Serena laughed.

“I’ll come get you when I’m ready to leave.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the rating change folks!  
> Well here we are, from what was supposed to be a tiny lil oneshot to 20k words. I hope you guys enjoyed the ride.  
> Huge shoutout to [Crystal](http://kitscaboodle.tumblr.com/) and [Nova](http://janetfraiser.tumblr.com/) for being my number ones always and forever. And a big thank you to [Sarah](http://delightfullyambiguous.tumblr.com/) who lets me send her hundreds of messages that say things like 'wait what do British people call x' or 'do British people every say this'. Her patience is astounding.  
> Come chat with me on [tumblr](http://magnass.tumblr.com/) about Berena and cry over gifsets and headcanons with me!

Bernie ended up spending a very nice night at Serena's place, her sleep only slightly consumed by dreams of what would happen were she to slip into Serena's room and under her covers sidling up beside her and running her hands… It didn't bear consideration. The morning after, she had been involved in a spirited game of scrabble with Jason when Serena had come over with coffees and sunk down onto Bernie's lap as though it were the most natural thing in the world.  Bernie had let her hands fall to Serena's waist unconsciously as the 7 letter triumph she was about to pull fled from her mind. And who could blame her for losing the game, truly, with Serena's warm body in her lap, and Serena's talented fingers playing with her hair, and Serena's wicked mouth murmuring suggestions in her ear. It was somehow erotic and domestic all at once and Bernie didn’t know which had more of an effect on her. And then Serena had looked up at her, eyes as dark and needy as that night Bernie had brought her home, sloshed as hell, and Bernie had had to use every ounce of self restraint in her body not to close the gap between them and catch her lips in a bruising kiss.

Which led Bernie to the predicament at hand. These almost kisses were becoming more and more frequent and quite frankly Bernie was at the end of her tether. She didn't know how much longer she could hold out before she threw caution to the wind and ravished Serena against whichever available surface seemed most agreeable at the time. Which was not at all what Serena deserved.

So when Serena mentioned in passing one day that Jason was to be spending the weekend at his friend Alan's place, Bernie had immediately leapt on the opportunity for some much needed alone time with Serena. She arranged for Serena to clear her Saturday, and when Serena had texted back ‘it's a date’ Bernie had done everything in her power not to read too much into the wording.

She was trying to constantly remind herself that it was very possible Serena would not, after all, be interested. She was a gorgeous woman with undoubtedly numerous prospects and Bernie had very much screwed up the chance she had been given. And so it was with some trepidation that Bernie carefully planned out their Saturday outing, even going as far as to practice what she would say to Serena a couple of times. She used Major as a stand in, and based on the eager and slobbery licks he delivered all over her face he at least thought she was doing a good job.

10 am Saturday saw Bernie waiting outside of Serena’s door, Boudicea parked on the drive and sporting a new coat of wax.

“Where are we off to?” Serena asked once the door was locked behind her.

“Breakfast, for starters.”

They drove a slight way out of Holby to a beautiful little bed and breakfast style cottage where they enjoyed a sumptuous meal. Then it was to a botanical garden, as Bernie had remembered a fleeting comment Serena had once made about how she and her father used to garden together. They ended up wandering around there for a long time, Serena pointing out the flowers and naming a surprising number from memory. It only took about 45 minutes of that for Bernie to work up the courage to reach out and grab Serena’s hand. After they had effectively examined every bit of flora available, Bernie took Serena on a drive through the countryside. While driving their hands somehow ended up clasped together once more and Bernie was loathe to let go each time she had to shift.

For the piece de resistance Bernie had Serena wait in the car while she set up. When she was satisfied, she brought Serena out to view her handiwork. Bernie had set up on a little lookout that stood above a lake. In the distance beyond the water were rolling hills, and the sky above was just beginning to change colour as the sun moved low upon the horizon. Bernie had set up a picnic blanket, adorned with a heavenly spread of finger foods and a couple of bottles of Serena's favourite Shiraz. Serena gasped when she saw it all.

“Bernie this is… This is gorgeous,” she said softly. Bernie blushed and ducked her head.

They ate and drank with gusto, hungry from their walk, and interspersed with the enjoyment of their meal was the easy conversation that had marked their friendship from the beginning. When all the food was packed up again and they were enjoying the last of the shiraz in their glasses, the sun was setting now and the sky a glorious mix of colour, Bernie was rather shocked to find how close they had gotten. They were shoulder to shoulder, their hands a centimetre away from touching where they rested on the blanket. Serena looked up at Bernie and then they were leaning into each other as they had so many times before. Bernie could feel Serena's breath on her cheek, found herself unable to tear her gaze away from Serena's face. Her eyes flitted between Serena’s eyes and Serena’s mouth. They leaned in even closer, their lips almost touching… And then Bernie abruptly pulled back. Serena looked confused and Bernie felt driven to explain.

“I don't want to kiss you, Serena,” she blurted out before she could stop herself.

“Oh,” Serena let out a deep breath, looked more hurt than before. “Harsh but to the point.”

“No! No no no _no_ .” Crap. How had she already managed to fuck this up? “I want to kiss you. Of course I want to kiss you, I mean look at you. It's. I don't _just_ want to kiss you.” Serena quirked an eyebrow at that, her eyes filled with wicked intent and Bernie couldn't help but laugh. “No. No, I'm serious. I…” Bernie took a deep breath, then another one, steeped herself to speak. “I like you Serena. A lot. Crap, no. I mean I more than like you. I might be falling in love with you, even. I like every single thing about you, I want to be near you all the time, I want to walk down the street holding your hand, I want to be with you on your best days and your worst days. Because you are the most gorgeous, brilliant, fantastic woman I've ever had the pleasure of meeting and you put up with all my many character flaws with inimitable grace. I want to, to court you and cherish you and, hell, to snog the living daylights out of you!”

“Bernie,” Serena put her glass down as she firmly interrupted Bernie's rambling, “I’m going to kiss you now, and I swear to god if you pull away…” She let the words trail off as she grabbed Bernie's face between her hands and leaned in slowly, bringing her lips to hers.

It was soft at first, gentle and tender and loving. Bernie brought her hands up, one sinking into Serena's hair as her other arm reached around her shoulders to pull her closer. Tender did not last very long. Within moments the kiss turned hot and searching. Before long Serena was straddling Bernie’s lap, her hands running up and down Bernie’s sides. When they finally pulled apart, gasping for air, Bernie was struck by a sudden thought.

“Have you been, um, seducing me?” She asked, brow furrowed.

“For months. Thanks for noticing,” Serena replied with a smile, dropping a quick kiss on Bernie’s lips, “just think if it weren’t for that incredible self control of yours we could’ve been doing this weeks ago.”

“I was trying to be a gentleman!” Bernie protested.

“Mmmm. Well. I appreciate the thought but haven’t you heard my dear?” She grabbed Bernie’s hand and shoved it up her blouse, “chivalry’s dead.”

Bernie laughed, used her other hand to pull Serena towards her and kiss her deeply once more.

They did manage to make it back to the car, eventually. Their heated make-out session was interrupted by the crack of a twig in the brush behind them and while it was likely just a rabbit or some other small creature it was enough to bring them back to reality and they both agreed that this lookout point was a good deal too public for what they were both about to do. As soon as they were in the car with the doors closed, however, they were back at it.They leaned across the gearshift lips pressed together, tongues exploring each other’s mouths, and their hands roaming over every inch they could reach of the other’s body. It was like a lever had been switched for Bernie, now that she had touched Serena she couldn’t stop. Her hands shook as she undid Serena’s blouse, once it was open she let her hands explore the soft skin with abandon. She shifted, moving to kiss her way down Serena’s neck as she scratched her nails across the pale skin of her chest and stomach.

“Bernie.” Serena’s word was barely more than a moan and Bernie pulled back. She couldn’t help the hiss that she let out as she surveyed her. Serena’s lips were red and swollen from kissing, her eyes dark, pupils blown with arousal, her neck was marked with red spots where Bernie had sucked too hard for too long, and her stomach and chest were covered with red marks. She looked ravished and Bernie was struck by the knowledge that it was all because of her. She had never looked more beautiful.

“Yes?” She replied after a moment.

“You are very quickly working me up to a point of no return and beyond the fact that this is not exactly the most appropriate locale for such activities, your car is also considerably too small to allow for anything of the sort.”

“Where there’s a will there’s a way,” Bernie replied with a quick grin. But she sobered quickly, “just let me take the edge off for you? Then I’ll take you home.” Serena nodded and Bernie was relieved. She couldn’t stop touching Serena just yet.

It was awkward, definitely. A Fiat 500 did not leave a lot of room for maneuvering but Bernie was determined. She had one hand on the seat back beside Serena’s shoulder, the other she dropped down to stroke across her stomach again, and she couldn’t help smiling as Serena’s muscles twitched in response. Then Bernie dropped her hand even lower, deftly undoing the button on Serena’s trousers and working her hand inside.

Serena was soaking wet and Bernie let out a little moan at the discovery. She cupped Serena’s cunt, slipping her fingers into the wetness and Serena gasped. Bernie maintained eye contact with her as she moved her fingers, seeking out Serena’s clit. She circled her fingers around it, loving the way Serena canted her hips up in a bid for friction, then stroked the pads of her fingers over it again and again quickly working her up to orgasm, increasing in both speed and pressure until Serena could handle it no longer.

Serena Campbell was absolutely gorgeous when she came.

She bit down on her lip, letting out only the faintest noise, but Bernie could see the effect of the orgasm on her entire body. Her hips thrusting, her fingers clenching on thin air, her chest heaving, as Bernie used her fingers to coax her through the aftershocks. She closed her eyes at the very end, still breathing hard, and Bernie finally pulled her hand away. She couldn’t resist licking her fingers, relishing the taste of Serena on her tongue. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to drive home after witnessing such a thing; she would much rather stay right there and keep doing it over and over again but the practicality of more space and a bed made a convincing argument and Bernie did her best to compose herself and concentrate on the task at hand.

* * *

The second they were through her front door, Serena pounced on Bernie. She pushed her back against the door, pulling her coat off and flinging it to the ground beside them. Her blouse followed, then her bra. Serena had always been a goal oriented person. At that moment she was focused on one singular task: bringing Bernie Wolfe to orgasm. She lowered her head to Bernie’s chest immediately, licking and sucking at each nipple in turn. As she did so, her hands were busy undoing Bernie’s trousers and pushing them and her pants to the ground. She scraped her nails down Bernie’s sides and Bernie squirmed in response.

Serena dropped to her knees, glancing up and making eye contact with Bernie to make sure this was okay. After receiving a nod of assent she leaned forward and nosed into Bernie’s bush. Her hands gripped Bernie’s arse as she licked up the length of her cunt. She had imagined this a thousand times in a thousand different ways and reality did not disappoint. Her tongue thrust into Bernie’s vagina a couple of times before moving up to seek out her clit. She lapped at the engorged nub, dragging her tongue over and around it in a varying array of patterns. Bernie’s hands were scrabbling for purchase against the wood of the door and her hips were grinding down into Serena’s mouth as she grew more and more desperate. Serena refused to be rushed. That night in Stepney had been a very long time ago but Serena was glad to see that her talents had not left her. She continued to tease Bernie, building her up closer and closer to orgasm before moving away until she’d calmed down somewhat and then repeating the process again and again, until Bernie threaded her fingers in Serena’s hair and shoved her against her insistently, Serena’s name dropping off her tongue in a breathy moan. Serena obligingly refocused her attentions on Bernie’s clit and this time she continued up her delicate assault until she felt Bernie’s cunt spasm on her tongue, heard her cry out her name, her hands falling to her sides.

Serena stood up, mentally cursing the way her knees creaked as she did so, and wiped her chin on the back of her hand. She waited until Bernie’s breathing had slowed and then she pulled her head down towards her and kissed her softly. She wasn’t prepared for Bernie to take control of the kiss, to deepen it, to spin them around so Serena was the one with her back to the door. She certainly wasn’t prepared for Bernie to move her hands down to her thighs and bodily pick her up. Serena let out an undignified little squeak at the move, but once she realised what was happening she was quite happy to wrap her arms around Bernie’s neck and let her big macho mechanic carry her up the stairs to her room. Bernie had been right, after all, about her ability to pick Serena up and Serena couldn’t deny the frisson of arousal that moved through her in response. She used her position to start kissing a path along Bernie’s neck, exulting in the way her breath hitched in response. When they got to Serena’s room, Bernie threw her down on the bed and then crawled on all fours over top of her, leaning down to kiss her as soon as she could.

“Bernie?” Serena’s voice was quiet, she didn’t want to break the mood but she wanted to make sure she said this before they went any further.

“Yes?”

“I forgot to say it earlier, but I’m falling in love with you too. More and more every day.”

Bernie’s massive grin in response was endlessly endearing and Serena couldn’t resist pulling her down and snogging her soundly.

* * *

Weeks later, Bernie was working away on an engine repair when she heard a car drive into her shop. She put down her tools, extricated herself from where she’d been crouched in the engine bay, and walked around the vehicle she’d been working on to find Serena leaned up against the driver’s door of her little green Saab.

“Car troubles?” She asked, unable to keep the foolish grin off her face.

“Oh yes” Serena’s voice was throaty and suggestive and Bernie knew immediately she wasn’t there about her car, “engine’s been running hot and rough, might be in need of a good lube job.”

Bernie came to stand in front of her, her arms on either side of Serena resting against the car. “Something makes me think lack of lubrication isn’t the problem,” she said with a little laugh before leaning in to kiss her soundly. When they pulled apart they both laughed, and then Serena let out a little yelp as Bernie moved her hands down to Serena’s thighs and hoisted her up against her. She loved that that move still surprised Serena no matter how many times she did it, and Serena dutifully wound her legs about Bernie’s hips for support. Bernie carried her to the front of the car and leaned her down on the hood, bending over to kiss and nibble her neck.

“You know,” Bernie said after a few minutes, “some of us were trying to do our jobs here.”

“This is a lot more fun though,” Serena shot back, a little breathless. Bernie pulled back so she could look her in the eye.

“How would you like it if I just strolled onto your ward in the middle of the day and pulled you away from all your patients?”

“Well, then,” Serena retorted, pulling Bernie down over her once again, “I would be duty bound to give you a very thorough pelvic exam.”

Bernie’s groan at the joke was lost as Serena captured her lips in a deep kiss.


End file.
